What Do Readers Want?

When's the last time you asked your readers what they want? What do they want to read about, learn about, and what products or services should you be offering?

My colleague Jeanne Hurlbert, Ph.D., conducted a survey with Internet marketing expert Mike Koenigs and discovered that almost 47% of the marketers who responded said they never use surveys for product creation. 

Here's what Jeanne says:

"That’s missing a huge opportunity! If you ask your customers what products they want, create those products, and then tell them that you’ve created the exact product they asked for, they’ll love you for it. They’ll feel part of your community, they’ll feel invested in your business, they’ll feel connected to the product—and they’ll buy it."

Dawud Miracle posted about this problem the other day:

"Many small business owners focus on creating the best products and services based on their skills, knowledge and abilities. Then they go out and find people who need or want what they have to offer. Sometimes it works and you build a successful business around it.

"But more often, especially, it seems, with small business owners in either service-based business or who are just starting out, it doesn’t work. They create services, for instance, that they would want or that they believe other people would need.

"What’s missing is your audience.

"The question so few small business owners ask themselves is – what do the people in my target audience know they need? Let me repeat that – what do they know they need?

That’s the key to marketing – finding out what they know they need. Not just what they need, but what they know they need (I’m repeating this on purpose)."

Which got me to thinking...

How can you find out what your readers want? You have to ask, of course. What's the best way to do that?

• Do you ask in a blog post and hope people will leave comments?
• Or do you put up a poll and ask people to vote?
• Or create a survey and ask people to take the time to respond?

I'll bet all three are valuable resources. What are you doing and what have been your experiences? And, I'd like to know what readers to this blog would like in the way of products and services. What would you like to know, learn, have that would help you?

Comments

[Alexander]

I agree with the author. Thanks